Wings, particularly the lift-generating wings of aircraft, are elements of a large or even very large size which considerably increase the overall size of the aircraft transversely to their fuselage. For certain types of aircraft, this bulk afforded by the wings is prohibitive in some circumstances, particularly when the aircraft are being transported and/or stored.
As far as transport is concerned, certain aircraft, such as gliders, need to be transported on road vehicles (trucks or trailers) for example in order to return them to their base following a remote landing. For transport in this way, the wings (which in the case of gliders are very long) need to be able to be dismantled and stored along the fuselage. Other types of aircraft such as drones need to be transported enclosed in containers sized for loading on to trucks, which means that their wings need to be fully or partially dismantleable, so that they can be transported separately.
As far as storage is concerned, particularly in the case of long-term storage, the transverse bulk afforded by the wings presents a significant problem, whether storage is to be in a hangar (the possibility of at least partially dismantling the wings means that the hangar size can be smaller or that a greater number of aircraft can be housed in a hangar of a given surface area) or in a container (complete or partial dismantling of the wings is essential).
Admittedly there is the known folding-wing solution adopted on certain airplanes, particularly those carried on aircraft carriers, which allows an appreciable space saving, but while the fully-folding or partially-folding wing solution admittedly allows the transverse bulk to be reduced it does, because the wing is folded upward, result in an increase in the vertical bulk of the airplane. Because of this, the folding-wing solution cannot prove satisfactory when the issue is, for example, that of the road transport or containerized storage of the aircraft.
At the present time, the wings or wing portions that are dismantleable are assembled in the conventional way using bolts or studs. This means that the assembly and dismantling operations are lengthy. This is a constraint deemed unacceptable in certain applications, for example in the case of drones, the speed of deployment of which is a determining factor in their effectiveness. In other applications (for example, in the case of gliders), rapid fitting and dismantling of all or part of the wing, although not indispensable, would nonetheless be greatly appreciated. In addition, the fasteners need to be mechanically capable of withstanding the high torques to which the wing elements are subjected and need to be engineered accordingly; they are therefore bulky and heavy. Finally, the proliferation of fasteners rendered necessary to obtain the required mechanical strength makes the assembly statically redundant and this results in mechanical stresses detrimental to reliability.
An essential object of the invention is to meet practical expectations and propose a novel and relatively inexpensive technical solution to be implemented that will allow all or part of an aircraft wing to be assembled and dismantled quickly and simply while at the same time maintaining the wing's mechanical strength and ability to withstand torque while the aircraft is in flight.